Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! I hope you have a wonderful day.

Last year I was in the village for Christmas last year and went to church at a village down the road.

After the service there was some gift giving among the members of that congregation. You can see the palm tree has been decorated with balloons and streamers (click on the photo to see it bigger).

We had a meal after the service too, and following the meal, some church members got up and sang some songs and had a great time doing it too.

This year I am in Australia for Christmas and it is good to be with my family, but I would also enjoy Christmas in the village again too. Our village went out singing carols on a few nights and I’m sad that I couldn't be a part of that, but I will enjoy my Christmas here in Australia.

Village Christmas decorations

I think our house was the only house in the village with decorations last Christmas, and again also this December. I’m not big into decorating and if I hadn’t been given the decorations that I have, our house probably wouldn’t have been decorated either.

My decorations are limited to just a small lightweight Christmas tree with lights that I got at a ‘white elephant’ Christmas party in Ukarumpa a few years ago, and two foil things that you hang up which a lady in Australia sent to me one Christmas.

One of the foil things broke in two, so now instead of having two foil things, I have three. Here was last year’s ‘house cook’ decorations. Can you spot all three foil things (seriously, what is the proper name for them?) and the Christmas tree on the table?

As the evening drew darker, our little house cook was aglow with the Christmas tree lights…

And here’s a closer up photo of the tree:

The tree on the table with people around it:

A couple of times this year I put Christmas tree inside the house on the windowsill and I thought it looked quite effective. Reminded me of seeing people’s Christmas trees at their front window in Australia.

Women’s Christmas fellowship lunch

Before Christmas, we joined the local women’s fellowship for a lunch time gathering. In the picture below, you can see everyone sitting at the beach, and the table with

The ladies had organised a ‘Secret Santa’ or ‘Kris Kringle’ type thing a few weeks earlier, and today was the day that they gave their gift to the person whose name they had drawn previously. We hadn’t been involved in this (next time maybe!), but it was fun seeing the ladies’ joy as they gave and received gifts. The smiles in these pictures say it all:

Christmas Eve

I know I'm gong backwards in time, but I want to tell you about the good time I had on Christmas Eve.

I went to a party for single women at a single lady's house. I loved her Christmas tree, it made me feel happy and Christmassy. Here's a picture of it:

Anyway, everyone had to bring something you didn't want anymore as a present for a gift exchange. We did it like a game, everyone took a number and going in number order, we got to choose a present and open it, or instead of opening a present, you could 'steal' a present from someone else, that they had already opened.

I had number 8, and the present I opened was two decks of playing cards and I was quite happy with that and hoped that no-one would steal it, but at the very end, it ended up getting taken, so I opened the last present that was still wrapped, and it was another good thing – a miniature Christmas tree with small lights (battery operated). I was really chuffed with it and was happy that I got it. It is really lightweight too. Several people suggested that it would be a good Christmas tree to take to the village (if I'm ever in the village at Christmas time). It's also just great for me to have in Ukarumpa, as I didn't have a Christmas tree and wasn't bothered about obtaining one, but now that I have it, I like how it makes the house more Christmassy. Here's a photo of it:

There you go, that was my happiness from Christmas Eve!

Christmas Day

I started the day by making myself a special breakfast and then I went to a 9am service. After that I went on to Yahoo Messenger, put the webcam on, connected to Mum and Dad and opened my presents with them watching me, which was nice. Much better than opening them on my own.

I had invited a few people over for Christmas lunch at 1pm and I had been busy over the past few days doing some baking. In the picture below you can see my "good food pyramid", although you can't really see what's in the containers. From top to bottom: shortbread (top two), fruit loaf, cheese muffins and fruit biscuits.

We had a good main course consisting of borscht, chicken, ham, meatballs, rice, potato bake, cheese muffins, bread rolls and salad items. We had Christmas napkins and crackers that were kindly given to me by a friend here who didn't end up needing them, so we all got the daggy paper hats on! Here's a photo of us:

We had nice desserts too. Here's a mango and passionfruit mousse that I made (from my church's recent dessert book!) and mince pies and Christmas cookies that other people brought.

Here is some of the food from my "good food pyramid". From left to right: fruit biscuits, fruit loaf and shortbread. I forgot that you're supposed to use plain flour with shortbread and I used self-raising flour, so it wasn't quite the same as normal shortbread.

My guests helped clean up, which was great. They all left before 4pm and I had the rest of the day at home by myself. I looked through my presents again, and in the evening, I saw all my relatives on the webcam on Yahoo Messenger and chatted to them too (that is, 'typing chat', not a voice call, the sound is usually not very good for that). Even Jyra (my dog) made an appearance on the webcam!

Well that was my Christmas this year. I hope you had a great Christmas.

Christmas mail!!!

Well, it was very exciting this morning when I checked my mail box at the Post Office. There was 12 pieces of mail for me! Nine of them were Christmas cards and one of them was a nice 2010 calendar. One of the people who sent me a card, also send me some Christmas stickers, gift tags and two decorations, so that was special.

Getting the cards and the notes that people wrote was very encouraging, especially since I was feeling a bit down yesterday. It is really encouraging to be reminded that I have a lot of friends in Australia who care for me and pray for me and are proud of me too. Sometimes I need that kind of encouragement – not just at Christmas time either, throughout the year too it is good to receive notes of encouragement.

Here is my little collection of Christmas cards received so far:

My new decorations making my house a bit more Christmassy:

Decorating for Christmas

A few weeks ago, I went to a friend's house with a few other people and helped her decorate her Christmas tree. It is a different Christmas tree – it is made up of bamboo!! Here's a photo of the tree after we decorated it.

I have very minimal Christmas decorations at my house because I don't want to acquire too much "stuff", so I cut up some of last year's Christmas cards and blu-tacked them on the walls in nice arrangements. It is very basic, but at least it gives the house some Christmas atmosphere. Here are some photos.

Two special days

The 25th of January was ‘Burns Day’ and 26th of January was ‘Australia Day’.

At Ukarumpa, the Australians got together and celebrated Australia Day a day early, on the 25th. We had a BBQ and hung out together. There was a game of cricket happening too, but I just sat and talked with people. On the actual Australia Day, the 26th, my Christmas parcel from my family arrived finally! So Australia Day became Christmas Day for me again. I was glad that my parcel came safely in the end.

Burns Day is a Scottish thing, remembering the poet Robert Burns. I decided to have two people over for a ‘Burns supper’, which is usually a meal with haggis and mashed potatoes and Burns poetry recital. The two people I invited aren’t Scottish, but they have lived and studied in Scotland.

I made a haggis x meatloaf, mashed potato and sweet potato and cooked some peas. I read out the poem ‘Address to a haggis’ when I served the haggis, and later I recited the first stanza of ‘To a mouse’. You can find the words to these if you do an internet search.

Here’s our Burns Supper:

Christmas and Boxing Day

On Christmas day in the morning I went to someone’s house for breakfast, followed by a break for church and then we returned to the house. There was a group of eight of us. We each had a stocking to open, plus a couple of presents, which was really nice.

At lunchtime I spoke to my family in Australia via the internet. I have now got Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger set up, so we can make phone calls over the internet and even see each other through our webcams.

In the afternoon, I went to another person’s house for a meal. It was a small group of four people. Between eating the main course and dessert we played a detective board game which was fun.

On Boxing Day, a bunch of singles came to the Guest House (ie my place) for a ‘pot luck’ lunch. Twelve people were there altogether. I was full up after eating the main courses, then I still had dessert to squeeze in! But I managed of course!

We played a game as a big group afterwards and someone offered to help me with the dishes, which was much appreciated. I had a good day.

Merry Christmas

I hope you have a great Christmas and thank you for reading my blog. This Christmas will be different for me. Up until yesterday I didn't have any plans, but at the last minute I got some offers. In the morning at 8:30 I will be going to someone's house, then to church at 10am and back to the same house. In the afternoon I am going to another person's house at 2pm.

I have received 2 parcels that I can open tomorrow, but I will have to wait till 29th for the next mail delivery to receive some others that I know have been sent but haven't come yet.

I haven't got any Christmassy pictures from here, so here's a picture of Jyra that I took last year. She must be looking like this just now, missing me at Christmas.